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Added by: Simon Fokt
Back matter: "A welcome attempt to resurrect an older tradition of moral and political reflection and to show its relevance to our current condition." -- John Gray "Cosmopolitanism is... of wide interest-invitingly written and enlivened by personal history... Appiah is wonderfully perceptive and levelheaded about this tangle of issues." -- Thomas Nagel "Elegantly provocative." -- Edward Rothstein "[Appiah's] belief in having conversations across boundaries, and in recognizing our obligations to other human beings, offers a welcome prescription for a world still plagued by fanaticism and intolerance." -- Kofi A. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general "[Appiah's] exhilarating exposition of his philosophy knocks one right off complacent balance... All is conveyed with flashes of iconoclastic humor." -- Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature "An attempt to redefine our moral obligations to others based on a very humane and realistic outlook and love of art... I felt like a better person after I read it, and I recommend the same experience to others." -- Orham Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture1992, Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Back matter: Africa's intellectuals have long been engaged in a conversation with each other, and with Europeans and Americans about what it means to be African. At the heart of these debates on African identity are the seminal works of politicians, creative writers and philosophers from Africa and its diaspora. In this book, Appiah draws on his experiences as a Ghanaian in the New World to explore the writings of these African and African-American thinkers and to contribute his own vision of the possibilities and pitfalls of an African identity in the late twentieth century. Appiah sets out to dismantle the specious oppositions between "us" and "them," the West and the Rest, that have governed so much of the cultural debate about Africa in the modern world. All of us, he maintains, wherever we live on the planet, must explore together the relations between our local cultures and an increasingly global civilization. Combining philosophical analysis with more personal reflections, Appiah addresses the major issues in the philosophy of culture through an exploration of the contemporary African predicament.Comment: Chapters 1 & 2 can be particularly useful in teaching on the social construction of race.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Reconstructing Racial Identities1996, Research in African Literatures 27 (3):58-72.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: The main theoretical gap in In My Father's House - in the opinion, at least, of its author - is the lack of a proposed alternative to the account of identity in the black diaspora that the book criticizes. The pseudo- biological essentialist account of black identity is, in my judgment, now generally understood to be untenable; what is lacking is an alternative positive account of black identity. In the book I criticized the biological account as a proposed basis for identities in the continent as well: but I offered, in the chapter on "African Identities," some suggestions for a positive basis for a range of continentally based mobilizations of Africa as what I called "a vital and enabling badge." But what I had to say about diasporic identities was, to put it kindly, perfunctory. Katya Azoulay's critique of my work ("Outside Our Parents' House: Race, Culture, and Identity" in RAL 27.1 [1996]: 129-42) identifies this theoretical gap and rightly draws attention to it. Let me offer at least a sketch of an approach.
Comment: The article follows up on Appiah's In My Father's House.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?2007, in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York, London: W. W. Nortion & Company.-
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Added by: Erich Hatala Matthes
Summary: In this chapter, Appiah offers a cosmopolitan critique of the concept of cultural property/patrimony. By emphasizing the common features of our humanity and the tenuousness of certain cultural identity claims, he puts pressure on conceptions of cultural property that would exclude others, particularly those that have a nationalist character. He raises important philosophical questions about cultural continuity over time, and explores how the location of art can best facilitate its value for humanity. In general, he supports a cosmopolitan/internationalist approach to cultural property that promotes the exchange of cultural products around the world.Comment: This text offers a clear and effective overview of philosophical issues concerning cultural property, and uses a range of cultural and artistic examples. It offers a concise summary of the legal scholar John Merryman's classic article in support of internationalism about cultural property (not included in this curriculum). It pairs well with Lindsay's article.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Akan and Euro-American Concepts of the Person2004, In Lee M. Brown (ed.), African Philosophy: New and Traditional Perspectives. Oxford University.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: This essay explores the theories of the person within Western and Akan traditions. It identifies six obstacles to theory comparison. It argues that there may be no non-question begging way of comparing theories since these theories themselves play key roles in understanding how each is to be used.
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Arcila-Valenzuela, Migdalia, Páez, Andrés. Testimonial Injustice: The Facts of the Matter2022, Review of Philosophy and Psychology-
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
To verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice three facts must be established. The first is whether the hearer in fact has an identity prejudice of which she may or may not be aware; the second is whether that prejudice was in fact the cause of the unjustified credibility deficit; and the third is whether there was in fact a credibility deficit in the testimonial exchange. These three elements constitute the facts of the matter of testimonial injustice. In this essay we argue that none of these facts can be established with any degree of confidence, and therefore that testimonial injustice is an undetectable phenomenon in singular instances. Our intention is not to undermine the idea of testimonial injustice, but rather to set limits to what can be justifiably asserted about it. According to our argument, although there are insufficient reasons to identify individual acts of testimonial injustice, it is possible to recognize recurrent patterns of epistemic responses to speakers who belong to specific social groups. General testimonial injustice can thus be characterized as a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer.Comment (from this Blueprint): Migdalia Arcila-Valenzuela and Andrés Páez argue that it is impossible to detect an individual instance of epistemic injustice. Their case relies on a review and analysis of the recent research on implicit bias. The key theoretical premise of their argument is that it is impossible to establish, for any individual situation, what is the minimum degree of credibility that the speaker is entitled to. However, they still think we can measure general testimonial injustice, which they construe as “a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer.”
Arendt, Hannah. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy1982, University of Chicago Press.-
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Added by: Sara Peppe
Publisher's Note: Hannah Arendt's last philosophical work was an intended three-part project entitled The Life of the Mind. Unfortunately, Arendt lived to complete only the first two parts, Thinking and Willing. Of the third, Judging, only the title page, with epigraphs from Cato and Goethe, was found after her death. As the titles suggest, Arendt conceived of her work as roughly parallel to the three Critiques of Immanuel Kant. In fact, while she began work on The Life of the Mind, Arendt lectured on "Kant's Political Philosophy," using the Critique of Judgment as her main text. The present volume brings Arendt's notes for these lectures together with other of her texts on the topic of judging and provides important clues to the likely direction of Arendt's thinking in this area.Comment: This book provides a good overview of Arendt's perspective on Kant's political philosophy. Previous knowledge on Kant is needed.
Arisaka, Yoko. Paradox of Dignity: Everyday Racism and the Failure of Multiculturalism2010, Ethik und Gesellschaft 2-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Yoko Arisaka
Abstract: Liberal multiculturalism was introduced to support integration and anti-racism, but everyday racism continues to be a fact of life. This paper analyzes first some frameworks and problems that race and racism raise, and discusses two common liberal approaches for solving the problem of racism: the individualized conception of dignity and the social conception of multiculturalism. I argue that the ontological and epistemological assumptions involved in both of these approaches, coupled with the absence of the political-progressive notion of «race» in Germany, in fact obscure important paths against racism. Lastly I introduce a politico-existential position from Cornel West and conclude that racism should be seen as a failure of a democratic process rather than a problem of race.Comment: Offers a short review od the philosophy of race, the pitfalls of liberalism, why liberalism cannot solve racism, the situation in Germany
Arola, Adam. Native American Philosophy2011, in The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy, William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield (eds.), OUP.-
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Added by: Sonja Dobroski and Quentin PharrAbstract:
This article introduces the central thinkers of contemporary American Indian philosophy by discussing concerns including the nature of experience, meaning, truth, the status of the individual and community, and finally issues concerning sovereignty. The impossibility of carving up the intellectual traditions of contemporary Native scholars in North America into neat and tidy disciplines must be kept in mind. The first hallmark of American Indian philosophy is the commitment to the belief that all things are related—and this belief is not simply an ontological claim, but rather an intellectual and ethical maxim.Comment:
available in this Blueprint
Arpaly, Nomy. Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry Into Moral Agency2002, Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Nomy Arpaly
Publisher's Note: Nomy Arpaly rejects the model of rationality used by most ethicists and action theorists. Both observation and psychology indicate that people act rationally without deliberation, and act irrationally with deliberation. By questioning the notion that our own minds are comprehensible to us--and therefore questioning much of the current work of action theorists and ethicists--Arpaly attempts to develop a more realistic conception of moral agency.Comment:
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Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time)
2010, WW Norton & Company.
Comment: The introduction provides a particularly good entry text to ethics, race and cosmopolitanism.